Wolverine's Ryan Reynolds Dives In for Deadpool Spinoff

It's official: The mutants are taking over Hollywood. And we're not talking about the freaks running the studios.

Following the monster weekend for X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and a day after announcing that a Hugh Jackman-powered sequel is in the works, 20th Century Fox has confirmed to E! News that Jackman's costar Ryan Reynolds will be given his own spinoff and potential franchise-launcher as the Marvel Comics antihero Deadpool.

The 32-year-old Canadian actor, otherwise known as Mr. Scarlett Johansson, will again star as Wade Wilson, a wisecracking, cancer-stricken mercenary who's cured of the disease after undergoing the same Weapon X genetic alteration as Wolverine.

But along with superhuman powers, enhanced strength and self-regenerating healing powers, the slightly unhinged Deadpool can absorb the abilities of dead and captured mutants.

Aside from Deadpool and the Wolverine sequel, Fox is also working on an X-Men spinoff focusing on Ian McKellen's villainous Magneto and another dubbed X-Men: First Class, which is being written by The O.C. creator Josh Schwartz.